


be as you've always been

by cottagecorecas



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Castiel's POV, Castiel's thoughts before the empty takes him, Episode: s15e18 Despair - Castiel's Confession Scene, M/M, Mentions of Castiel saving Dean from Hell, Starts as Billie is knocking at the door in 15X18
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28250919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cottagecorecas/pseuds/cottagecorecas
Summary: a short oneshot from castiel's pov at the end of 15x18.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 3
Kudos: 41





	be as you've always been

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in my notes app after getting sad about cas' death. just as a warning - there are mentions of blood and other injuries, but the descriptions aren't very graphic, and while it is not directly described, it is implied that cas dies at the end, just as he did in canon.
> 
> as always, this is unbeta'd and probably riddled with mistakes. thank you for reading if you do <3

Though I do not know it yet, I am looking at you for the last time.

It was this that made me come to life again, millennia after my making. Heaven’s most important mission: bring brother Michael his vessel.

In Hell’s clutches you were twisted, corrupted, a forsaken soul amongst the truly damned, and in my hands, I held you, the mighty Michael Sword, the shape of a bone-tired man. Hollow, black eyes, with features warped and distorted, your humanity’s light still shone through, as pure and bright as the birth of the universe, and at the very sight of it I collapsed. I fell to my knees from where I stood, powerless to its beauty. I bowed my head, blinded by its goodness. Somehow, untainted by your damnation, a love lived in you so unbounded, its very presence freed me.

My brothers did not see you as I did. They did not understand. Heaven’s mission was to bring you back, not fix you, but I couldn’t leave you as you were. It was not enough to pluck you from the underworld and drop you back on Earth. Dean Winchester deserved to be saved.

Flashes of light and demonic howls around us, my brothers fought the souls of the condemned, and with my needle and grace thread I stitched you back together, cell by cell, atom by atom. When I was finished, your eyes were the colour of spring grass, and they looked up at me from under your lashes like they’re looking at me now, guilt and panic overflowing, and in the clutch of my pitiful hand, the host of Heaven behind me, I held you close and raised you from perdition.

That day I pulled the golden ring from above my head and bent it to fit my finger. Though my vows were silent, I named your wars mine, and under your steeple, blessed by the light of your stain-glass soul, my heart was made eternally yours.

Forgive me. I thought I had fixed you then, but in the barn where we met again, there you stood before me just as broken as I’d found you. It seems some scars run too deep for grace to mend, and ever since that day I have tried to heal those wounds. In all our years together, though I have failed, I have never stopped trying.

Now, with the last of my stolen glances, I find that there are puddles in the green grass of your eyes. Like two lost jewels, they sink to the bottom of their teary ocean’s surface, and the corners of your love-bow lips are drawn down, the golden freckles I dusted your cheeks with stolen by a life unblessed by sunshine. I have watched as you pulled yourself apart for the ones you love. I have seen how your will to do what’s right has brought fate to its knees. This world should dry your tired eyes and fix your fallen smile. It should beg for forgiveness and kiss you all over. How did it not fall at the very sight of you as I did all those years ago? It has seen you as I have, jagged and bright and breath-taking. How can it not love you as I do?

You are just as beautiful as the day I found you, but life’s unkindness has left you blind, and it’s clear you do not remember how I drew Hell’s poison from your weary bones, or how I filtered its venom from your blood, and carved the sharp lines of your jaw as if from Michelangelo’s marble. You must not recall how I set your broken nose, but kept its perfectly crooked bridge, and scattered the last of the galaxy’s gold-dust there. You do not know that with the last of my grace, I caressed away your skin’s scars, or that when I restored your wilted smile, made from two pink petal lips, it dawned on me that Cupid’s bow should have been made in its shape. If you did, you’d understand.

A secret most guarded, the moon my accomplice, only under the cover of darkness did I let myself dream for the both of us - of our little house on the hill. Blushed roses in the windows. A white picket fence. I’ve learned that we don’t always get what we wish for though, and even the sweetest of dreams must end. Our fate at the door, your unsung beauty chokes me to life just as it did twelve years before, Inferno’s flames licking at my feet, and I know then that I cannot let you die, and I cannot leave without trying to make you understand. This truth will not follow me to the gallows.

With my last borrowed breath, a final prayer, the truth spills from my quivering lips, and through a shaking smile I say my teary goodbye. Wrapped in silk, I entrust my heart to you. You’re the reason it’s beating after all.

Though this world has been cruel and unforgiving, you remain the most beautiful thing that will ever walk it, Dean Winchester, and you will always deserve to be saved. Please believe me when I tell you that you have been nothing but a blessing on my unworthy life. I hope this last act of love can kiss your eyes open. I hope my final words, as short as they fall, can help you see.


End file.
